


love is a mystery, dragons are real

by robaca (goodlamb)



Series: Love & Dragons [1]
Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Aromantic Character(s), Aromanticism, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Movie(s), Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:50:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5326400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodlamb/pseuds/robaca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark on the Hermes, post-rescue. Conquering food that's not potatoes, taking care of his messed up body, and trying to get involved in the thing that Beck and Johanssen have going on, with as little hits to his dignity as possible. </p><p>(Mark as an aromantic, bisexual botanist)</p><p>(Title from a bastardized quote from <i>Dragonslayer</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

List of Things For Mark Watney, Pirate King of Mars, To Do On The _Hermes_ (in Succession):

  1. Shower (like Beck told him to)
  2. Sleep for 36 hours
  3. Eat as much as he fucking wanted
  4. Then puke it back up
  5. Follow Beck’s nice and slow refeeding schedule (probably like, half a container of grape juice and some peanut butter on a spoon) (Note: King of Mars was wrong, schedule is NOT nice, it involves an IV, and Gatorade) (Note #2: and THEN peanut butter) (Note #3: Peanut butter might be the most delicious thing ever invented, thank you George Washington Carver)
  6. Sleep some more
  7. Beck
  8. Johanssen
  9. (Note: Ha ha, do you get it, Log, no, for real, Mark Watney King of Mars needs to figure out how to tell Chris Beck and Beth Johanssen that, yes, he really had wanted to see them get together in a lovey dovey relationship way, and then bang, but also, he might want to actually _see_ them bang, and maybe be personally involved in said banging)



Mark got through steps 1 through 6 fine— though he discovered that “as much as he wanted” and “as much as he could before puking” were very different scales, both of which Beck disapproved of. The sleep was great. The shower was great.

The “talk to people about your Feelings™ and then explain your Weird Sexual Orientation™ to them” wasn’t going so well.

Lewis had apparently already moved Beck and Johanssen into the same bunk, which gave him the warm and fuzzies, or some combination of the warm and fuzzies and the feeling he got when he saw a complicated plan of his come to fruition.

Ha ha, you two are sleeping next to each other, probably _naked_. I am the master of romantic entanglements— I control the horizontal and the vertical!

He probably needed more sleep before the talking started, anyway.

+++

Martinez broke the seal on the asking-Watney-about-his-masturbation-practices box much sooner than even Mark thought he would. As in, he broke it on Day 2 post-rescue.

“Like, was it just all going nuts all the time? I think that would have been me, man. Right handed, left handed, 24/7— in between, you know, growing food in your own shit.”

“First of all, it was your shit too, Martinez, so thanks so much for that.”

Mark thought that maybe talking about being back in the Hab, thinking about the scent of the filth, the boredom, the loneliness— he thought it would make him feel off-kilter, shaky. Pulled back there. But the feeling that came with talking smack with Martinez felt so familiar that he found it wasn’t fazing him. Sitting here, around the _Hermes_ mess table, with clean clothes and a snack of trail mix (carefully monitored by Beck, of course)…there was no room for it to feel like he was back on Mars.

He continued. “And second of all, let’s just say there was a lot that I made sure the camera was turned off for.”

He looked around the table at his crew: Beck grinning widely, Beth blushing even though she’d swear she wasn’t, Lewis saying, “Oh, _no_ no no,” with a crinkle in her eye that he hadn’t seen since he made it back on board. Vogel looking stone-faced and unamused with his chin in one hand. Fucking German.

He thought quietly about the stuff the camera didn’t see: him crying like a baby that first night, and when his potatoes died, and when he just plain felt like it. Him, walking around naked just because, and then feeling too much like he was being watched and getting dressed again. Him, trying to smash a Pyrex glass against the bunk frame when he realized he was too weak, too hungry, too tired to even get hard enough to jerk off.

Him, laying on Beck’s bunk, on Johanssen’s bunk, sometimes even fucking Rick’s bunk, even though he couldn’t lie to himself and say they still smelled like his friends. Him, pretending like he could smell it anyway.

He was brought out of the daydream by Beth, saying, “Please, please tell me you used _Three’s Company_ as spank bank fodder,” and the crack of raucous laughter that followed.

But a part of him was stuck thinking how nice it might be to bury his head in their pillows, now.


	2. Chapter 2

Within a week of being back he had hours of data waiting for him, e-mails and pictures and even _video,_ some stuff that NASA didn’t usually like sending over the nearly 30 minute connection between the _Hermes_ and base.

It seemed there were some strong feelings about letting his folks talk to him, though.

There were messages from a lot of different people— a big group photo of all the family cousins, with a big “WE LOVE YOU MARK” banner. A weird couple groups of friends, some of whom he hadn’t seen since college, did something similar. There were about a million, formal-sounding messages of support, including one from the President, but also one from nearly every other world leader that he’d ever heard of, and some that he hadn’t— he bet there was some behind the scenes diplomatic wrangling going on there, a la “who gets to send a letter to Mark Watney, astronaut.”

There was even a goddamn team photo of the Chicago Cubs, all wearing t-shirts with _his face on them,_ under the words “Bring Him Home” in big bold letters. (Was he a hashtag now?) They had a banner that said “WE’RE ROOTING FOR YOU, MARK.” It was a goddamn head trip.

The first video he got of his mom, he was happy to have taken in private, because he cried like a fucking baby for a shameful amount of time. Or, whatever, not even shameful, it was his _mom_ and he just got fished off of _Mars._

His dad got into frame long enough to tell him he loved him (which Mark had to listen close to just to hear over his mother’s blubbering). He saw him long enough for Mark to see just how much the whole affair had clearly aged his parents, his dad carrying more gray in his hair than Mark remembered, his mother looking more tired around the eyes. Even through her big, fat tears of joy.

But it had been a couple of weeks, now, and he hadn’t sent a video back. He replied with an e-mail to his parents, of course. A lot of reassuring talk, a lot of I-love-you’s, and a lot of jokes, partly because they were his go-to defense mechanism and partly because he knew if he wrote something without his sense of humor his parents would secretly get freaked out.

A photo had been released, too. It was a little cheesy, taken the day after the rescue, his hair still long and shaggy as he sat on Beck’s examination table. He had one thumb up, and a grin on his face, and he made sure he was bundled up in thermal wear as much as possible.

He was worried about his mother seeing how much weight he’d lost. Annie-whoever from NASA’s PR department had gotten close to groveling for just a video of him walking and talking, basically showing people that this multi-billion dollar rescue mission had been worth it.

But even thinking about getting in front of a camera for an extended period of time made him feel nauseous. Lewis allowed Beck to take and release that one picture, and then told Mark that everyone back home could go screw themselves. She released a lot of B.S. statements about Mark being grateful but in terrible need of rest and recuperation in this trying time, Mark says thank you for the support of the American people, yada yada yada. He fucking loved her for it.

But while he didn’t really feel bad depriving the world of a PR ad, he was starting to feel bad for his mother and father, who had gotten the same photo that the rest of the world had gotten. His mom was dropping hints in her daily e-mails (he couldn’t believe she kept up that volume, but he was surprisingly able to match her word for word) about wanting “to see his beautiful face.”

He liked his reflection better now, even in the dull and slightly distorted surface of the ship’s glassless mirrors— he’d put on a few pounds. He was washing semi-regularly. He shaved, at least once (when he had the energy to lift the razor to his face; Jesus he’d had so much more adrenaline fueling him on Mars). He was looking more like the Mark Watney that had left Earth, that had last hugged his mother.

But he could still see how gaunt he was, the weight he’d lost in his face. Even with his bruised and bony ribs covered by two thermal layers and his favorite, bulky Cubs sweatshirt, which he rarely took off these days. The thing had been one of his allotted comfort items, and now it hung off of him, the upper half falling loose where it had once stretched comfortably tight around his shoulders, the cuffs of the sleeves falling over his wrists. That wasn’t a bad quality in a sweatshirt, but it made him feel…changed. Like even his favorite things from before all of this weren’t for him anymore, were supposed to be for somebody else.

And even bundled up he knew his mom would be able to see it. There’d be something different in his eyes, in his voice.

So for now, he wrote letters.


	3. Chapter 3

As the days and weeks passed Mark slowly got more added to his plate: literally, in that Beck trusted his body to let him eat full meals, but also in that Lewis started letting him get back into his old work. Only the little stuff— some tinkering with the heat system that’d gone funky, a few of his botany experiments that the rest of the crew had taken over during the whole “thought you were dead and left you on Mars” fiasco.

Some people would call Lewis a slavedriver for setting him to work that quick (and Mark thought about cracking some jokes along the lines of “leaving me on Mars means that you have to do my job for me now, Commander, didn’t you know?” But he had a feeling that it would make her face all pinched, and she’d secretly be all sad and guilty, so. No jokes.)

But anyway, he was glad for it— if there was one thing that he knew about himself at this point it was that he was task-oriented. He’d go stir crazy pretty quick if all they wanted him to do was sit around, rest his ribs, and gain weight. And that, he knew, was why Lewis put him back on assignment in the first place.

Still, he only did the experiments that required no heavy lifting. His ribs couldn’t be stressed that much. But also he couldn’t “breath too shallowly or you risk a high chance of developing pneumonia” as Beck told him. Just endless cheery news.

Most of his experiments were pretty tame, all having to do with the effects of the stress of space and recirculated air and all that good stuff on plants and their growth. The crew had kept his little guys alive pretty well, he was pleased to find.

As he started taking measurements on his little Seymours and Audreys (what was he gonna do, not name the space plants?) Rick was working on his own shit in the lab station. Martinez spotted him, in the rolling chair that Beck said would be good for his work.

“Oh, buddy, thank God you’re back, I mean this whole trip was really losing its purpose with our gardener gone.”

Mark flipped him off and went back to tending to Audrey III and IV.

He had to admit, after all the excitement of growing planet-colonizing, life-sustaining potatoes, checking in on his little bean sprouts and fungi colonies was…a little humdrum. But there was a reason he was a botanist in the first place. He liked green things. He liked watching things grow.

He liked, right now, having the stress of survival off of his back long enough to remember that.

Getting his plant-mojo back, he started singing, quietly under his breath, _“Suhhhhh—ddenly Seeeeeeymour._ ” He could practically hear Rick twitching across the room. _“Grooooowing beside me,_ ” he continued, _“up on the Herrrrrmes, way out in spaaaaaaaaace._ ”

It only took a couple more verses for Rick to eventually snap, and threaten to turn the ship around and leave him on Mars for the second time. “And I can do that,” he said, “because I’m the pilot.”

Mark quieted for a second, before turning in his swivel chair (ow, remember to mind the ribs), and belting, “ _SUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-DENLYYYY SEEEEEEEYMOUR”_ until Rick left the lab shouting, with fingers in his ears.

It was good to be back.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DD7VIKZnGA


	4. Chapter 4

Beck, doing his examinations, was getting ever better at hiding his shock. It was hard for Mark not to call it “disgust”— Beck was too nice a guy to ever think anyone, especially someone under his care, was _disgusting._ But a guy’s gotta think it. He was looking at a starvation victim, after all.

 _From hero, to “victim,”_ Mark thought. He wondered how fast the public would change their tune if they could see the way his ribs still stuck out, the lines of his hip bones. The way his teeth were ever so slightly rotted. The way his hair started falling out. _The way I still can’t get a hard-on,_ he thought. It was still kind of a sore spot for him.

“Still tender here?” asked Beck, prodding gently at his ribs. His still-healing broken ribs, what do you think, Doc?

“Mm-hm,” Mark grunted. He didn’t have enough energy to fuck around with Chris today.

Beck took down his pulse (slow), blood pressure (up shit’s creek), and weight (he’s gained .4 kg in the week since he’d last been weighed! Whippee!)

“You’re making progress, Mark,” Beck said, his voice soft and full of optimism, compassion. It was enough to make you wanna gag. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, because it’s slow, but that’s the pace we want it.” Beck smiled, putting a hand on Mark’s shoulder.

God, Mark felt desperate for him to keep touching him, on his sides, with his gentle hands.

“Alright, we’re about done, is there anything else you need?”

 _Need._ It was a strange thing to consider. On Mars his needs were pretty apparent: he could calculate the damn square footage of his needs, the ounces of them, the fucking pirate-ninjas. Everything was a _need._ Everything was survival.

He figured that his only “needs” once he got off that fucking empty planet would be, like, a Kobe steak and someone to screw. And here, on the _Hermes_ , he had a lot of those Mars-needs taken care of without even thinking about it. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he’d go into the mess and just look at the rows and rows and rows of rations. Not a goddamn potato in sight.

But what did he need?

Mark, without thinking about it, twisted his fingers in the soft material of Beck’s hoodie. So much for respectable doctor-wear.

“Mark?” Beck asked, surprise in his voice.

On his first or second day back there had been a big sort of group hug, five people who were wary of crushing his ribs, and were also avoiding the scent that still lingered on him. He had been too freaked to really appreciate it then, but…

He needed…he needed…

He pulled at the man’s sweatshirt, not looking at him as Chris stumbled forward, taller than Mark was as he sat on the examination table. From that angle, Mark’s head, bent forward with his eyes on the ground, came to rest nearly on Beck’s stomach.

There was a slow moment where Chris didn’t react, and Mark didn’t really have enough dignity left to feel ashamed for needing human contact, but his heart was still ready to sink even further down in his chest— and then Chris suddenly seemed to come to life. He put one arm around Mark’s shoulders and pulled him in closer. Mark let out what could have been a sob, but was muffled by Beck’s stomach. Beck put his other hand on Mark’s head, running softly over his still shaggy, sort of matted hair.

“That’s alright,” said Beck, murmuring all sorts of nonsense. Mark wrapped his arms around his waist, leaning in. “That’s good, Mark,” he said.

+++

The next day, after Beck had let him run off with his tail between his legs (wow, look at that, he _did_ still in fact have the ability to feel shame; he wondered if that fell under the same “progress” header as everything else), the doctor found him again, cornering him in a corridor.

Chris leaned in close to look at him with kind, solemn eyes, and put his hand on Mark’s shoulder. Mark froze— goddamn it, so much of his life ended up in these misunderstandings, he never knew if he was leading people on by just receiving the affection they were willing to give, and now this would be so fucked in such a small space for the next—

“I just wanted to let you know that what you’re going through is completely on-par for your recovery,” Beck said.

Huh?

“You were alone for almost 700 days, Mark. It’s almost textbook to be a little touch deprived.”

Huh. Maybe.

Beck rubbed at his shoulder, smiling gently again. “I know part of you is going to be too embarrassed, but if you ask, the people on this ship want nothing more than for you to feel safe and happy.”

Mark’s face was flushing. This fucking guy.

Beck smiled brightly, looking like a kid happy that his parents had stopped fighting and everyone had come to their senses. Jesus.

The doctor pulled him into a hug before they parted ways. Mark let himself sink into it before he grumbled about some repair work and took off.

+++

 

A few days later Beck sent him a private message inviting him to a sleepover. Well, he didn’t call it that, but the words “popcorn” and “movies” and “our room” and “wear comfortable clothes” were used. It was a goddamn grown-up slumber party.

Mark had just gotten a haircut that day (it turned out Vogel was the one with the most practice in haircutting; he had a good pair of NASA-approved clippers— “You keep those around for show, right? To pretend like you’re bald because you shave it?” “For that, and for my ball sack,” said Vogel, stonefaced. The magnificent bastard.)

All the matted bits that his fingers got caught on were gone. After a shower he looked in the mirror and felt the most human he had felt in a long, long time.

So he showed up to Beck and Johanssen’s bunk way after evening meal, with his newly shorn hair still wet and in the NASA thermal wear that he always thought looked like pajamas. Ergo, he was feeling all of five years old, which was a great way to feel going into a not-date with some people he both respected as colleagues and wanted to fuck into oblivion.

He was at least 85% certain that they didn’t know about the second part. He’d be fine if that’s where this night was going, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t, and besides, if they did know that meant that tonight he’d have to have the good ol’ Talk™. He thought he might need to gain back another .9 kg before he had enough energy for that.

He knocked on the door before he could overthink himself into a spiral and remember that he usually didn’t even have enough energy for the night to go “that way”— wow, brain, thanks for taking it _there_ right before one of them answers the—

Beth answered the door. She looked him up and down, looking unimpressed, then amused.

“I’m sorry he made this the least subtle thing ever, Watney. Come on in.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Beck said, in similar wear to Watney (except for the addition of his soft grey hoodie) as he crossed the room with a big bowl of popcorn. NASA liked popcorn, it being compact and easily microwavable.

Beth rolled her eyes and then turned and flopped down on the floor. Space ship furniture was, in general, bolted down, so for maximum lounge potential there were two mattresses pushed together on the ground. He was guessing they had stolen Beck’s mattress from his old room once they combo’d up.

Beck followed her over to the mattress pile and laid down opposite to her. They left a pretty sizable space between them that made it obvious where he was supposed to go.

Johanssen took a fistful of popcorn and looked over at Mark where he was still frozen. “Get over here, loser, we’re watching _Dragonslayer._ ”

A larger tablet was propped up on the mattress-less bed frame, at a good angle to be seen from the floor. Beck stayed silent, chewing quietly on his popcorn, one or two sensible pieces at a time. He seemed ready to let Mark come on his own time.

Mark scratched at his head, his hair still wet. _Aw, fuck it_ , he thought, and made his way over to the mattress. He landed in between them, making both mattresses bounce.

“Just like you assholes to give me the crease.”

Beth made an _mmhmm_ sound, leaning up to start the movie. “That’s basically why we invited you.”

While she was up Beth turned out the lights in the room from the tablet control panel, so they were shrouded in at least some darkness, which decreased Mark’s awkwardness level by a good 30%. He got a fist of popcorn too as the opening credits to the 80s schlockfest started up.

A couple of minutes into the movie he started looking around. If he was gonna be perfectly honest with himself, _Dragonslayer_ was amazing and he’d seen it maybe 3 times (more like 6, or 8,why was he bothering to lie internally) so he knew he wouldn’t miss much.

Looking around the room he could see the changes Beck and Beth had made. You couldn’t really personalize all that much on the _Hermes_ , but even in the dim light Mark could easily see all the little details that showed both Beck and Beth were leaving their mark on the place. (Ha ha, mark.)

All the private quarters were basically identical, so differences stood out. Beth had sweatshirts and underclothes and things laying all over every piece of available furniture. Giving both of theirs propensity for big, soft layers, he wasn’t going to be surprised if or when they started to turn up wearing each other’s clothes. They both had pictures of family up, and Beth had some small print-outs of various…nerd shit, he didn’t know.

Back when they were planning his on-ship botany missions, Chris, the as-of-yet unfamiliar ship doc had come to him and NASA’s plant specialists and asked if he could keep something green in his quarters. Cut through six months of deliberation and forms and a whole bunch of nonsense, they said: okay, but it’s gotta be less than 6” square, and it’s gotta take up as little water as possible, and also Mark’s gotta figure out some sort of science to do with it to justify the thing.

Eureka, the tiniest, ugliest little cactus was born. Mark quietly named it Marvin (the Martian) and wrote up a half-assed report entitled “Plants and Crew Morale.” (Subtitled: Dr. Beck and Marvin, the Cacti Who Would Not Die.)

It gave him a little warm feeling in his gut to see that Beck had kept Marvin alive while he was gone. The little cactus rested on the side table next to the bunk, beside a framed photo of Buffy Summers that obviously belonged to Johanssen.

(He was kidding. Her personal item was a glass paperweight, and knowing Beth it probably hit the maximum NASA weight allowance down to the ounce, just to fuck with them. He’d looked at it once or twice on the first trip, the few times he’d been in her quarters to shoot the shit. Its interior was made up of overlapping pieces of color-bending glass, forming together an almost fractal image that changed when you held it up to the light. The bottom was engraved _Happy Graduation, Love Mom & Dad._)

About 15 minutes into the movie (look! Valerian was being suspiciously pretty and doe-eyed for a male, 6th century wizard’s assistant!) Beth was passing the popcorn to Chris, and she leaned over Watney, her chest covering his. And after the hand-off, she just…stayed there. She turned her head enough to still watch the screen, but kept herself nuzzled into his sweatshirt.

Mark was trying not to breathe too much. Or think about how his bony-ass chest couldn’t be that comfortable to lay down on.

Johanssen was so small, she barely put any weight on him. But it didn’t matter. The press of her body, warm on his, felt so good he had to close his eyes for a moment. Deep breaths.

They gave him enough time to get comfortable with that, when a little while later (look! Valerian is actually Valerie!) Beck seemed to collapse on his side of the mattress pile, slowly sliding down until he covered Mark’s right arm. The man was not fucking subtle. And Mark was pretty much getting the picture that he was here to be cuddled beyond all reason.

Something in his breath must have given it away— he felt like he was shuddering, his whole body, under the warmth of theirs— because Beck murmured quietly, his voice a little distorted from where he was smushed into Mark’s arm, “Too much, Mark?”

Mark let out a breathy laugh. “ _You guys_ are too fucking much,” he said, trying to come off breezy and cavalier and totally Mentally Sound and Not At All Touch-Starved, and failing. “Luring me here with popcorn and shitty 80s movies, when all you wanted was to feel me up.”

Beth punched him in the arm. The effect was kind of ruined by the fact that she was still laying on top of him, and because her fists were so tiny.

Chris sighed into Mark’s shoulder, rubbing his face there, and asking again, “Is it too much?”

Mark took in a shuddering, slow breath, and then wriggled his arms around Beth’s and Beck’s sides. “Nah. No, it’s good.”

Beth, tactfully, remained silent. Beck let out one of his _mmm_ noises of approval, and they watched the rest of the movie curled up around Mark.

+++

Over the next couple of days he was marginally embarrassed to notice that the other crew members had obviously been tipped off. Martinez was surprisingly subtle about it, working in a few more bro-hugs than they normally would have had. (The first one was a little too rib-crushing for a guy with recently cracked ribs, but Rick adjusted.)

Lewis, in her steady (and yet always so awkward) way, went for supportive pats on the shoulder, whenever she checked in with him about his work. He figured she must have seen a 1970s sitcom dad do it in a “You’ve done good, son,” scene, or maybe it came in some sort of Commander’s handbook: “How to Properly Administer Supportive Shoulder Pats While Retaining Appropriate Respect for Authority.”

Vogel approached him in the kitchen once after dinner, when just he and Mark were cleaning up. He coughed to get Mark’s attention.

“We will hug now,” he said, and before he knew it Mark was enveloped in the strangest, stiffest, most German hug he’d ever gotten from an adult man. It lasted an appropriately awkward number of seconds.

When Vogel let him go, he pointed a finger at Watney. “This touching thing? Is I think not good. For you and I, I mean. This, you must get from Johanssen and nice Doctor Beck probably.” He patted Mark on the shoulder and Mark was torn between shock and trying not to burst out in strange laughter.

Vogel nodded, like it was settled. He narrowed his eyes and said, “But once back on Earth, I will buy you beer. Lots of beer.” He nodded again, and left the kitchen, and Mark felt free to crack up, minding his ribs.

It all went pretty well, is what he meant.


	5. Chapter 5

With his injuries (and the fact that he was just plain too weak to be throwing himself around, even in zero-g) Mark still needed help moving in and out of the corridors, especially going from the parts of the _Hermes_ where centrifugal grav had no effect, to the parts where it did. When he was in perfect condition it would be a breeze to push off a landing with his toes and gently come to a stop where he wanted to be. As it was, he needed someone’s arm just to help get him upright and balanced. It meant that he pretty much had to be accompanied everywhere.

Thankfully the crew weren’t assholes about it. Well, of course they weren’t gonna be complete assholes— they weren’t assholes, generally, unless Vogel hadn’t gotten his daily schnitzel allotment or whatever. Astronauts pretty much had to be upstanding guys: they were good at the respect thing when they had to be. And in this instance, they were good at helping him get around without making him feel babied.

Martinez and Vogel toned down the level with which they fucked with him, when they were pulling him through a corridor. Dealing with Beck was a little uncomfortable, since he was always doing the “concerned doe eyes” thing. But he did that with literally anybody, in any situation, so. It was okay.

The Commander hid her guilt well, which was good, because it sometimes translated into pity. He could still feel it, though, every time she looked at him. He could also feel that he was going to get annoyed with it sooner or later, and end up calling her out on it.

He didn’t blame her for what happened, and he never would. They all did the best they could, all the way through to the end, and the crew made huge sacrifices just to get him back. Guilt, pity—not only were they way misplaced, but he couldn’t _do_ anything with them. At some point it was just unhelpful.

But if he had to rank them by preference he’d put Johanssen at the top. She never wavered, looking at the way he’d shrunk and bent and changed since Mars. She was the only one he felt comfortable letting mock him for the grandpa stances he had to take just to get from room to room.

It might have had something to do with the fact that, even with Earth gravity, he could pick her up in one arm. Or it was the fact that her idea of mocking him was often just raising one dark eyebrow and smiling wryly.

He grinned. Back home people would probably kill for a print of just that look.

Beth was helping pull him through to the gym— Beck wanted to get him started on an easy exercise regimen, nothing too intense and no cardio, nothing that would tax his ribs and abdomen. But some light weight exercises, and some stretching was supposed to help him build back muscle as he gained weight, as well as alleviate some of the joint pain he’d been feeling.

With said joint pain and the hellish zone that was his entire abdomen, he wasn’t really looking forward to it. But it was literally the doctor’s orders, so. Here he was.

Johanssen helped him over to the yoga mats. “Now, pops,” she said, voice simpering, “don’t tax yourself too hard with those stretches, we don’t want you too tired for shuffleboard later.”

“Ooh, shuffleboard,” he said, trying to talk back, even as his voice got tight. He was just trying to do something as simple as lay flat and stretch his hands out above his head, like Beck showed him. “Do I get tapioca after?”

“Only if you’re good,” she said.

He knew that to some extent she was there to keep an eye on him. It felt weird to him, like coddling, being looked after by someone other than Lewis. There was a hierarchy, technically—but under usual circumstances they were all pretty much on even footing.

He tried to remind himself that he would do the same for Johanssen if she was injured, and he wouldn’t feel weird about it at all.

Besides, Johanssen spent nearly all her free time in the gym anyway. They were only allowed a certain amount of cardio per day— couldn’t have the crew burn through more calories than they needed to, it was a matter of supply rationing— but she ate up every minute on the treadmill she could. She quickly dropped the banter, and he could see the changes in her as she got into the zone, focusing on her breathing.

Mark struggled through a few more of the exercises that Beck had laid out for him. Really, they were a list of exercises that had been filtered down through some of the best medical minds that the world had to offer— Beck was trained as a ship medic, not a rehabilitation therapist. He had delegated to all the resources NASA had contracted on Mark’s behalf. What fun.

But the videos they had sent him on his tablet, the gentle stretches and the weights using just his feet, even they were wearing him out. And each movement, every one of them pulled at least a little at one of the places that hurt.

Which, he admitted, were hard to avoid, since he had pretty much fucked up his entire body.

He groaned again, trying to get up from the floor for his sitting exercises. Goddamn it.

A few minutes later he heard the treadmill wind down to a halt. He’d been taking a few peeks at Johanssen and a few minutes ago he saw that she had entered a slow, steady, cool-down routine. Now he heard the patter of her jumping off the machine and stepping over to him on the mat. He’d kind of given up on the whole “getting up” thing and was just planning on laying there until his allotted exercise time ran out.

Johanssen let out a little _a-hem_ and he opened his eyes, to where she was standing over him with her arms crossed, peering down at him. She had barely broken a sweat with her four-mile.

“Agh, fuck you and your peak physical fitness,” he said, making an aborted move to wave at her with one hand before it flopped pathetically back to the ground.

She didn’t quite smile but there was something amused in her eyes. Score one for Watney’s humor, 2105832 to 0.

“Here, old man, let me help you,” she said, getting down next to him on the ground. He sighed, but let her push him up from where he was laying. She sat down behind him, back-to-back, and he was surprised at how good even that felt, just the pressure and straightening support from her smaller frame.

“Link hands with me,” she said, reaching behind her and out to their sides, fingers splayed for his to link into. He chuckled as he reached for her. “Aww, Johanssen, you wanna hold my hand?” he said.

“Don’t be an asshole, Watney, if you want your back to feel better.”

He had to give her one, there.

Beth talked him through leaning back against her back as she put her feet flat against the floor and let him push her down. “Try and keep your sides as straight as possible.”

He couldn’t talk for a moment. Beth started laughing, even as she was bent over.

“You’re making a lot of happy noises there, bud.”

Mark groaned in response.

She let him rest there for a moment, relishing the feeling of his spine stretching out, taking a lot of the weight off his aching ribs. Soon she convinced him to bend a little in the opposite direction. “I don’t want to test your ribs too bad, so don’t go too far.”

He was willing to listen to anything she said, and he told her so.

After laughing she let him stretch once more in the opposite direction. Then she was quiet for a moment, before speaking.

“You really fucked up your back out there, huh?”

“Eh,” he said, “about as much as I fucked up everything else. I don’t recommend farming and digging up rocks in an EVA suit.”

“Noted,” she said, voice wry.

After a minute or so, when even that position on the ground started to get uncomfortable, she got him up and into a chair (actually, the bench usually used for chest presses, which he wouldn’t be doing anytime soon). He showed her the leg workouts that Beck had given him, and she nodded, helping him get his legs into the weights. He grunted as she watched for a moment, and then, probably sensing that he was feeling too pecked-over, she said, “Make sure you’re still protecting your abdomen,” and then went to the next machine to work on her own routine. One with considerably more weight, but hey, he wasn’t too jealous of her at that moment.

They kept at it in mostly silence for a while, him switching routines once more before she helped him get back down on the ground for another cool down routine.

“Is cool-down just code for ‘half-nap,’ because it feels like that’s what we’re doing,” he said, as they both laid down flat, looking up at the ceiling of the _Hermes,_ sipping at silver packages of water through thick plastic straws. It might have been the workout going to his head, but he swore if you laid like this you could feel the ship spin and rumble beneath you.

“It’s code for shut up and let your muscles chill for a minute.”

He grinned, still not even looking at her. 

It was quiet as they sipped at their water.

“You’re pretty familiar with this physical therapy stuff, huh?” he asked, after a minute.

She let out the vocal equivalent of a shrug. “Lots of athletic injuries in high school.”

He turned his head to look at her, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “I pegged you for the ‘stay in the computer cave, hiss at the sun’ type of teenager.”

She turned to look at him, looking unimpressed. “You know that you can like computers _and_ field hockey, right?”

“And astrophysics,” he said.

“And _botany,_ ” she said, mocking him. Just a little. He grinned.

She was silent for another minute, and he looked back up at the ceiling, feeling the spin.

“You know,” she said, sounding like she had been pondering something in those few minutes, “if it were possible, the best thing for your back would probably be a long soak in hot water.”

Mark laughed a little. “Yeah, I tried that in the Hab.”

He didn’t turn to meet her eyes when he heard her head flip back over fast. “You…what? You tried it? How?!”

He grinned again. “Used some spare Hab canvas, hooked it up like a hammock with some tethers and then…” He had to pause to snicker. “Filled it up with water heated up by the RTG.”

He could hear her thud her head against the mat. “Oh my god, never tell Lewis that.”

But, then she whispered, “Martian Hot Tub,” and started giggling, and then he did, and they were both laughing there on the sweaty yoga mat until his ribs hurt too much, and when he complained she laughed even harder.


	6. Chapter 6

Beck had him stretched out on the examination table, thermal blankets and pillows laid out underneath him so he wouldn’t lay too heavily on his ribs, or touch the cold metal. With his bare chest. Because he was bare-chested right now.

He wasn’t freaking out about it or anything, of course.

He jumped, just a little, as Beck came up behind him, standing next to the table. But Chris’ soft voice calmed him down a little bit. He maybe wasn’t that used to having people moving around him yet, when he couldn’t see them. Especially when his skinny-ass chest and back were on display.

He let Chris’ voice wash over him. “Beth was telling me that you were having a lot of back pain at one of your workout sessions?”

Mark sighed into his crossed arms. “Yeah, ever since…well, ever since real early in the…” Mission. Marooning? Time served on the red planet. He still didn’t know what the fuck to call it.

Chris prompted him. “Since early in your time on Mars?”

“Yeah,” he said, trying not to sigh like a mopey kid.

“I’m sorry about that,” Chris said, all that open compassion and calm juju. It was annoying  that it worked to calm him down.

Mark flinched a little less when Chris laid his hands down on his mid-back, gentle.

“I don’t have enough of a background in physical therapy to be of much use— and I’m certainly not a chiropractor, which would come in handy. However, during my undergrad I did work as a masseuse for a while to pay the bills.”

Mark tried to whip his head around to look at him but he was met with a hand on his neck. “Stay still, you’re not gonna help yourself any giving yourself whiplash.” Mark could hear the grin in his voice.

“Are you fucking with me, here?” he asked.

Beck chuckled. “Ah, no, actually. I worked at a day spa in my hours outside of class. And I was pretty good at it.”

He returned both hands to the line of Mark’s spine. There wasn’t too much high tech medical equipment on board— too much weight to allot for something like an MRI, on the off chance they needed one— but they had a portable X-ray and ultrasound. It was enough for Beck to send images back to Earth to confirm what he’d suspected: only one rib was broken, the other few just cracked. And he’d taken another when Mark complained of back pain— there was definitely some inflammation, but they wouldn’t know if he really had a disc problem until they got back home. For now…they were monitoring his Vicodin usage way more than he did for himself on Mars. Which was probably a good idea but still made him grumpy.

“I’m going to start now,” Beck said, and he did, his thumbs starting to make small circles around the strained muscles on either side of his spine. “I don’t want to mess around too much until I know you don’t have a vertebrae problem, so I’ll try and go easy.”

Mark chuffed and then groaned as Beck dug (however gently) into his lower back muscle, which had felt the most fucked up for a while now. “I’m picturing you like, in a silk robe, with whale noises playing, giving old ladies rubdowns and doing aromatherapy sessions.”

He could hear Beck chuff. “That’s not all that far off.”

Beck kept at it, moving up his back in concentric circles, leaking tension out of the muscles in his shoulders, and where his back had been supporting his aching spine and sore ribs for weeks now. At first Mark groaned at nearly every touch, and he could feel his muscles shaking. Beck sounded concerned. “Do you want to stop for the day?”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he replied, half muffled where his mouth was buried in his arm. He heard Chris laugh.

It got harder to keep his eyes open, to hold his head up.

Chris’ voice went even softer than normal. “You can fall asleep, if you want to, Mark, it’s okay.”

Mark murmured something into his arm. The blankets were warm under him. Chris’ voice and his hands were soothing. The same hands that had pulled him back into the _Hermes_ all those weeks ago.

Everything was safe and warm, and when he woke up an hour later, alone, with the room’s lights dimmed and a blanket covering him, he smiled. 


	7. Chapter 7: Beth POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth is the smartest, and sometimes the best feelings-talker. Also, porn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Upping the rating~)

They didn’t get much time to themselves these days, so Beth was happy for the nights when neither of them had any duties and neither of them was too tired to do anything but sleep. Nights like this.

Beth sighed as she settled down on top of Chris’s dick, straddling him with her hands on the soft hair of his chest. Chris’ face when she rode him always kind of looked like he was getting run over by a car. So she giggled behind one hand as she lifted up with her whole body, running her other fingers over his nipple. Chris practically gurgled. He was lucky she was so crazy about him.

“You’re lucky I’m so crazy about you,” she said, riding him slowly, trying to be quiet. He focused enough, even with his flushed cheeks and hazy eyes, to smile gently up at her. Being around Chris made her say and do things she would normally keep to herself.

Like, for instance, what she had been thinking about the past couple of days.

Really, it had probably been longer than that. But the thought had kept itself running, like a song stuck in her head, as she picked it apart and looked at it from different angles. She felt like she was looking through the same long string of code, over and over again, trying to find a bug she knew had to be there. The reason why it couldn’t work.

Maybe the answer was that there wasn’t a problem in the first place.

Beth chewed at her lip. She looked down at Chris again, who had closed his eyes and— oh, look at that, had moved his hands to her sides, one rubbing soft over her small breast. The recycled air of the ship was always a little stale, a little chilly. Chris was always so warm.

Beth slowed her hips. “Hey, Beck,” she said, reverting back to last names whenever she felt on shaky ground.

He opened one eye, peering up at her. “Uh huh?” he said, half a groan.

“Do you ever think about Watney?”

Chris seemed to stutter, like, with his whole body, head shaking and both eyes opening. “What?” he said, sounding confused. “Think about Watney how?”

“Think about fucking Watney.”

Chris coughed, violently, his body jerking up and dislodging her from where she was…mounted. “Ahh, shit,” he said, putting his hands out and catching her by the waist before she could tip and be pushed out of bed onto the cold floor. Ow.

“Shit, shit, did I—? Ah. Fuck. What?”

Beth rolled her eyes, and flopped down on the bed next to Chris, where he was now sitting up, resting on one elbow. “You heard me. And you can think about giving me a straight answer instead of giving yourself a heart attack.”

Beck seemed to take a moment to reboot, blowing the air out of his cheeks in a quick rush. “Beth,” he started, getting into his somber, concerned counseling voice. Usually she found it kind of dorky and cute but right now it was annoying.

“Are you…do you think that me and Mark—? I would _never_ do that to you, especially in an environment this confined!” His eyes started shining a little bit, his voice going soft. “And it’s _you_ that I want to be with, you know that—”

“Oh my god shut up, Chris,” she said, flopping her arm over her eyes and groaning in frustration. He was either being deliberately obtuse or she had read this entire thing wrong, and she’d have to backpedal, fast.

“Beth, I just don’t, I don’t…understand…”

She uncovered her eyes again. Chris was staring at her, face all wrinkled up in concern.

So maybe he was just actually confused. She sighed. She wasn’t always that good at this…talking, thing.

She reached out and put a hand on either side of his face. He stared straight at her, with those big blue eyes.

“Chris. I’m not talking about you cheating on me. And—” she butted in as she saw he was about to get upset, “I’m not talking about _me_ cheating on _you._ ”

She moved in closer to him, so that her breasts pushed against his chest. He tentatively put his hands back on her waist.

“I just want you to tell me if you’ve ever…thought about it. If you think you’d like it.” She let her voice go deeper, grinding a little on his thigh where she was still wet. “Because I think I’d like it.”

She watched his face turn red, as he gulped, and she could feel him between their stomachs, where he’d never really gone soft. She smiled wide. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FEELINGS FINALLY HAPPEN

“For the last time, Watney, we’re not watching _Alien._ ”

“It’s a fucking classic!”

“We are on a space ship, and none of us are as ripped as Sigourney Weaver except maybe Lewis. If there was an alien attack we would all die, immediately.”

“So, what, if we just _watch_ it then that guarantees we find intelligent life out here for the first time in human history, and it attacks us and we all die?”

“Even just you saying those words is putting me on thinner ice than I’d like to be.”

“Guys,” Chris said, placating. “I think I have something you’ll both agree on.”

“Is it _Prometheus_?”

“Oh my god,” Beth said, “what is it with you and Ridley Scott?”

“It’s the _Avengers_ movie.”

“Shit. Which one?” Mark said, curiosity piqued.

“The 2012 one, with Scar Jo and Chris Evans.”

Beth groaned. “Oh my god that is the biggest piece of shit.”

Mark was vibrating with excitement. “It super fucking _is,_ I can’t _wait._ ”

Beth was looking at Chris with pleading eyes. He kissed her forehead. “You love watching pieces of shit.”

She sighed. “I do.”

 

An hour later they were in the middle of the big New York battle. Mark was munching on popcorn, happily crushed under the weight of both Chris and Beth. “I’m pretty sure Chris Evans was my sexual awakening,” he said, with his mouth full.

“Yeah, too bad about his hair.”

“He’s still beautiful to me,” said Mark, staring as Captain America vaulted Black Widow up into the air with his shield. “Good lord.”

Beth curled into his chest, murmuring, “I think her black jumpsuit was my sexual awakening.”

“What a great movie.”

“Truly a great piece of shit.”

 

After that one they watched the Black Widow movie, which was arguably the best of the franchise. And then they were all sleepy but Mark didn’t want to go back to his bunk alone, so Chris put on some slow documentary about whales that he had in his data storage for whatever reason. Nerd.

Mark’s eyes were drooping, and his arm was curled around Beth’s stomach, his hand slowly stroking the soft skin that was visible now that her top had ridden up. Chris’ head was lying on Mark’s shoulder, and he really must have been tired because it took him a moment to realize that the two had started making out. Quietly, softly, but—while on top of him.

“Uh,” he said, without thinking about whether this was a good or bad thing. He didn’t really have any other words planned beyond that.

Beth broke off from Chris, looking up at him with amused eyes. With little fanfare she reached up and pulled his face down to hers, kissing him soundly on the mouth.

He pulled back after a moment, with another “Uhhhhh,” as he looked down at Chris. The other man’s eyes were hazy, his face lax as he looked back and forth between Beth and Mark.

“Did you drug him or something?” Mark asked incredulously.

“Shut up. He’s fine. And he’s on board. We both are, if…you are?” she said, her voice going hesitant for the first time.

“Uhhhhhhh,” he said again, but then they started making out again and everything was pretty good.

+++

Afterwards, they laid there, warm and mostly naked under the thermal blankets, while his back was regretting the whole “having sex for the first time in a couple years, with two people, on the _floor_ of a spaceship” (but while _he_ was busy cheering because! Wow! His dick worked! And he had sex with two people that he liked, on the floor of a spaceship! For the first time in a couple _years!_ ).

Chris looked close to passing out, in a comfortable, well-fucked kind of way. Mark had flattened out, trying to find a position that didn’t freak out his sides or his back, and Beth was curled up between the two of them.

As they all cooled down, Mark was having trouble getting as relaxed as either of them. It wasn’t just his muscles, he felt tense all around. Yeah, that was great, and yeah, he’d like to do it again sometime, and, yay, the threesome worked out and everyone was cool with it!

But that meant it was time for _talking,_ and _explaining things_ about his _feelings._ Good lord. He felt half-trapped, like everything he wanted to say had decided to take up permanent residence in the base of his throat.

“Mark,” Beth said, voice grumbly and muffled from where she was pressed against his pec. “I can hear you thinking. Which is never a good thing.”

“Beth,” Chris said, somehow coming awake just enough to put on his doctor voice and chide her, gently. “If Mark wants to talk through what just happened then we need to be supportive of that.”

“Oh my god, do you have a guidebook on threesomes or something?” she said.

“Yes, actually,” Chris said, sounding a little miffed, “I do.”

Mark coughed. It was time. _Now_ was the time. It was…tiiiiiiiime. To...

“Spit it out, Mark,” Beth said.

“Okay, so, you know how like…you get crushes on people? Like. You feel that kinda pull towards other people, and it might be guys or girls, or both, or whatever.”

Both Chris and Beth were looking at him curiously. “Uh, yes?” said Chris, still trying to sound doctorly. Beth crooked an eyebrow. “Are you trying to tell us you have a crush on us, Watney?” she said, sounding amused.

“Um, ha, no, actually. Because uh, okay, so, I don’t get that pull. I don’t feel it. Never have, never will.”

Chris wrinkled his forehead. “But, you’ve dated. You’ve talked about it.”

Mark laughed, nervous. “No, not really, I’ve…fooled around. I’ve had long standing relationships that involve fooling around with people I consider friends. I can do, uh, _that._ ”

“You’re aromantic?” said Beth, voice curious. Wow.

“Uh, yeah, actually.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, and it seemed settled for her.

Chris on the other hand, seemed lost for once. “I…I’m sorry, what is that? Is it like,  asexuality? I’ve heard of that.”

“No, not really,” Beth said, and holy shit was she going to be able to explain that for him? “Like, they can be linked, you can be asexual and aromantic, but they aren’t dependent on each other.”

“So…”

Mark piped in. “I get sexual attraction, I’m pretty fucking bi, actually, but—” he whistled, “zippo on the romantic side. No lovey dovey business, here.”

Chris was taking it in. Mark shared a look with Beth, who was smiling reassuringly. Goddamn, she was cool.

Mark took a breath, making the effort to put all the stuff in his head into words. Which he was usually good at, just. Not like this.

“Yeah, so, I love you guys, maybe a whole lot—like, how I love my mom, and…the rest of the crew, and, I don’t know, I love the Cubs, and plants, and space and stuff.” Beth snorted a laugh into his chest. “But…I can’t love you in the romcom way. Or like…in the _rom_ way.” He was trying to come off lighthearted but was without a doubt failing. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

“So…” Beth said, sitting up and talking to Watney, but keeping her eyes on Chris, like she was edging him along, “you love us, but you’re not _in_ love with us.”

Mark nodded, a little frantic. Beth was obviously the smart one out of the three of them. Although, they already knew that.

Chris gave it one more moment of that quiet contemplation face of his, before he nodded, and looked at Mark. “So you’re okay with…Beth and I, being in a relationship, and _you_ and us…”

“Fucking for funsies and watching sci-fi marathons? Abso-fucking-lutely.”

Chris smiled, his face finally relaxing almost to the state it had gotten to before they started the “serious talk” part of the evening. Almost.

They laid there for another couple minutes, basking in all this “healthy communication” nonsense and also just really warm and comfortable. It lasted until Beth chimed in from her place on Watney’s chest. “Can we get off of the floor now please? There is a perfectly good bed, like, three feet to our right.”

They both agreed, and Mark helped them put the mattress back onto the wide bedframe. (Or he tried to help until Chris made a disappointed doctor face and told him to stop lifting things.)

The bed, once constructed, could really hold a max of 1 regular sized person (Chris) and 1 tiny person (Beth), so Mark chose that moment to start making his exit.

“Are you sure?” said Beth, even as she started getting comfortable, curling up on the microfiber sheets of her and Chris’ bed.

He smiled as the two of them got situated. “Yeah, I’m gonna go hit the hay in my own room.” He’d gotten all filled up, it felt like, with the warm, fuzzy, social interactive, just-got-fucked-on-a-spaceship feelings. Passing out in his own bed with his own pillows sounded like a great cap to the evening.

“All right, Mark,” said Chris, already close to passing out again, his eyes drooping and his voice soft, “we’ll see you tomorrow.”

He grinned, and called out as he was making his way to the door, “Only if little alien monster eggs haven’t attached themselves to our intestines already!”

He shut the door to the sounds of Beth’s loud groans of disgust, and he was chuckling to himself when he turned around and saw the Commander just a few short paces down the hall.

The corridor was mostly dark except for the emergency lighting along the walls. He knew that Lewis liked to make rounds around the _Hermes_ in between her duties and sleep shifts, something left over from her military habits in the Navy. She liked knowing everyone was safe in their bunks, even when they were a million miles out in space and nothing could hurt them.

They were both frozen, for a second, staring each other down on opposite sides of the hallway. Lewis’ face was all wrinkled up in confusion. He’d be making fun of her if he wasn’t so nervous.

And then she seemed to shake herself, and called out, quietly, “Do I even want to know?”

He laughed, relief in his gut, and said, “Nah, probably not.”

She shook her head, and he could tell she was trying not to smile. “Get back to your own quarters, Watney.”

He grinned, and walked towards her, in the direction of his own bunk. And maybe it was the post-coital glow, or the warm feeling in his chest the whole evening had left him with, or maybe it was the way her eyes still had the slightest tinge of sadness, of failure, whenever she looked at him—whatever it was, as he passed her something him reach out and wrap his arms around her. Lewis was a tall woman, so she had him by a couple inches. His chin fit into place on her shoulder.

She was stiff, for a moment, out of surprise, but a beat later her arms came up around him, slowly, and held him back, patting his shoulder. _Ah, another one of those Supportive Pats. His favorite._

He let her go a second later, and smiled as he pulled away, heading down the hall. He saluted as he did so, with a shit-eating grin, and said, “Night, Commander!” before turning away from her small returned smile, and walking out of sight.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm assuming the MCU will enter into the "nostalgia-filled childhood action movie canon" by the mid 2030s. And Chris Evans will probably be bald *cries*
> 
> Also, [this](http://www.amazon.com/The-Threesome-Handbook-Practical-SLEEPING/dp/1568583338) is probably Beck's handbook. (Written by Misha Collins' wife!)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of porn because it was denied to you in the last chapter. This is the last chapter on the Hermes :)

Chris tended to stay quiet during sex, is what he’d found. Quiet, and happy to watch, while Mark bent over Beth’s splayed knees, and started licking his way up.

Beth— Beth was _loud._ Too loud for a goddamn spaceship with 6 people on it. Mark started laughing with his tongue on her upper thigh, while she squealed and tried not to moan.

He could practically feel Chris’ bemused disapproval. He felt him slowly move in, sidling up next to Beth’s side on the bed, saying, “You’re just making it worse, Mark.”

Mark laughed again, sucking at the skin and pulling off to reply, “Yeah, that’s kind of my intention.”

Chris tsk-ed, and then leaned down to occupy Beth’s mouth, kissing her with the most passion Mark thought he had ever seen. And he’d watched _Casablanca._

Some small girlish part of himself was sighing and melting, deep inside. He loved watching them. He loved watching them love each other.

So much so that he got a little distracted, watching Beth gasp into Beck’s mouth, his hand covering her breast, her own hand making its way down to her clit.

Just then, while Mark watched dreamily, he suddenly felt Beth’s free hand clamp down on top of his head. He looked back at her face, where she had pulled off from Beck for a moment to grin at him, a spark in her eye. “I thought you had a job you were doing, Watney.”

Mark grinned right back. “Yes, ma’am. Please don’t give me a demerit!” Then he dove in, underneath her own wet fingers, and put his mouth to work.

Beth gasped again, and, just like her, tried to talk through it. “Y-you’re….you’re mixing metaphors, Watney. I-I was— _ah!—_ going for ‘strict boss lady’ and _you— ooo—_ you went straight for ‘school mistress.’”

Beck was laughing, quietly. Mark reached in with his hands, pulled apart her swollen lips and dark auburn hair, and lapped a stripe up the span of her, tongue flat and then going pointed, jabbing into her.

Beth cried out, and Beck tried to quiet her with his hand, laughing again, shoulders shaking the bunk. She breathed audibly, and said, sighing, “Okay, I think I can let it slide this once.”

She started giggling as he drew back and licked at her thighs again, and Beck started trying to shush her, failing because he was laughing too hard, and Mark thought this was the best he’d felt in close to two years.

+++

The next morning he walked into the mess while everyone was eating breakfast, and made his own bowl of cereal quietly. Vogel was the first one to take notice. “ _Scheisse,_ ” he said, and Mark grinned to himself as he pictured the dude dropping his sausage or whatever.

Rick started cackling, and then Lewis said, “Oh, my God.”

He turned around, and pulled down at the hem of Johanssen’s thermal tee, where it came to a rest a couple of inches above his belly button. “What?” he said innocently.

“I like the look, man,” Martinez said, and it was a sign that he was winning that the other man couldn’t come up with a better zinger than _that_. Instead of grinning like he wanted to, Mark pursed him lips, struck a pose, and said, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” The kitchen exploded as the three others cracked up.

Beth and Chris walked in a couple minutes later, both of them looking ruffled and still half asleep, Beth in a huge sweatshirt that could have been hers, his, or Chris’. She screeched when she saw him, and started chasing him around the mess hall, calling out, “Watney you’re stretching it! Oh my God I’m gonna kill you!”

He let Chris snap a few photos of him, laughing and darting around, trying to avoid Beth’s tiny clutches, and another one of him voguing with the shirt riding up, lips pouting like before. He laughed when he saw them, and forwarded them to his mom with a smiley face.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark, back on Earth, around the time that the flash forward from the end of the movie took place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to [indinarra ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/IndividualNarrative/pseuds/IndividualNarrative)for the Onion Boy line, and also for being a "muse"/late-night sounding board through all of NaNoWriMo this past month.

Mark Watney, ex-astronaut, one of many billion people on Earth. Grower of things that weren’t potatoes. No longer Pirate King of Mars.

He was, unsurprisingly, cool with the loss of his title.

He was finding teaching a lot more fulfilling than he thought he would. When he was offered the gig he thought it would be a lot of showboating, a lot of idealistic grad students asking him how amazing it was to be a hero, or worse, a lot of grad students asking him how painful the trauma of it was, how did you _cope,_ being _alone_ out there.

And sure, maybe there was a little bit of that, but, surprise, these grad students were science nerds. They mostly wanted to hear about the science of it all.

That probably shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as it was. Wow, Watney, do one book tour and it all goes straight to your head.

“Yeah, like you didn’t have a head size problem _before_ the book,” Beth said, while Mark was regaling them with tales from his first week of classes. He was in their bed, splayed out with Beth laying her head on his stomach. Chris had his grandpa glasses on, reading something on a tablet, occasionally making _hmm_ ’s and _ahh_ ’s of interest.

“Uh, excuse me, I don’t think anyone has ever had a complaint about this perfect head, Johanssen. Do we need to get out the _Sexiest Man Alive_ cover again for reference?”

“God, that was probably the clincher, that one sealed the deal as far as your ego is concerned.” Beth turned over and rubbed her face into the shirt covering his abs. The World’s Sexiest Abs, he thought, grinning to himself.

After a while, Beth flicked on a movie, and Mark pillowed his head on Chris’ arm, half to annoy him and half because he felt like it. Meanwhile he stroked through Beth’s hair with his free hand, thinking.

The book had kind of been a joke. He had so many people approaching him for book deals that first year, and he couldn’t get why people wanted to see even _more_ material from him than they already had— the released logs from his 700 sols had hundreds of hours of him talking to the camera like a jackass.

But on the other hand, the piece of him that just liked being contrary really wanted to fuck around with the salivating publishers.

So he wrote. It wasn’t like he was doing much, otherwise. He was coasting on his backpay and sponsor cashflow for that first year— his flashy Under Armor paycheck had done quite well in stocks and bonds while he was, uh, abroad. There had been the little problem of getting his identity back after having been declared dead, but his resurrection had been well enough publicized, it turned out, that the paperwork wasn’t too big of a roadblock.

He was bored, not doing anything productive besides PT and mandatory therapy sessions, with the occasional gardening in his backyard (while using the stupid wheely yardwork stool that his PT guy made him use, to lay off the stress on his fucked-over knees. And back, and ribs. And whole body.)

So he wrote. He gardened. He Skyped with his parents a lot. He did PT. He got a beautiful fucking dog, an Australian Shepard. She was a companion-trained girl named Molly, and he loved her to fucking pieces.

Sometimes he went over to Chris and Beth’s house (he got so giddy when they decided to move in together right away) and fucked and got fucked into the mattress.

He also woke up some nights in a cold sweat, and sometimes he had to go to his kitchen and take out every piece of food that he owned and count it. He could sometimes hear the Hab canvas shaking and rippling in the wind. Sometimes he had to sleep in the pop-up tent he’d guiltily bought online, when the open air of his house got to be just too much space.

Those nights, Molly would nose up at the zipper at the front, and whine until he let her in, and he’d fall asleep against her side as she kept watch and he listened to her breathe. There were no dogs on Mars, he reminded himself.

It was. It was a lot, that first year.

So during it all, he wrote.

His therapist called it “therapeutic,” but Mark figured that if _he_ wanted, he could call anything “astronautical”; didn’t make him _right._

And, like he said, he mostly wrote just to fuck around. He wrote his first book with one goal in mind: publish a book written by Mars survivor, Earth’s favorite astronaut and hero, the one and only _Mark Watney_ …and have it be fuck-all to do with Mars.

He probably used the word Mars like, twice in those 300 pages. He wrote instead about his other concerns, of which he had _many_. That contrary part of himself flared up for those long stretches of writing, wanting to prove to people that there wereother parts of his life, parts unrelated to the red fucking planet.

He wrote about his sustainable agriculture projects, from way back before he ever got involved with NASA. He wrote about how ludicrous it was that this planet had enough food and housing for every single person living on it, but people still starved and froze on the streets of Chicago.

He wrote about his parents, about how his mother formed the way he saw the world— down to the shitty jokes and the love for plants. About how his father always had a passionate, deep interest in space, in astrophysics, but didn’t have the means to pursue it in his own life; he wrote about the walls of his childhood home, with bookshelves built into every available surface, and the endless tomes of science fiction and scientific non-fiction. He wrote about the stuff that had first turned his eyes to space.

He even wrote about his Weird Sexual Orientation™. He didn’t really want to, but he thought about how much reading about a real live person with his identity would have meant to him when he was a kid.

So he wrote about feeling like something was wrong with him from a really young age, about trying to fake it till he made it. About eventually reaching a point in his life when he discovered that, shit, not feeling romantic attraction was _certainly not the weirdest thing to be found in the natural world._ Like, Jesus Christ, had anyone seen the stuff they pulled out of the Mariana Trench? Now that shit was weird.

Then he got sidetracked and wrote about the ways they should be exploring the oceans just as much as they’d been exploring space. And about the weird kinds of jellyfish you could find down there. And about how he believed in mermaids a little bit.

When he finally had enough of it he just shrugged and parceled off a big copy of all that bullshit to his publisher. It was a shock to him when they decided to print it anyway. When he met with them, they were all bright, optimistic smiles (although there was a tinge of manic fear in those eyes, he noted.)

And surprise! People loved it, the weirdos. It turned out that he was “funny” and “quick-witted” as well as “deeply insightful.” _“Mark Watney, the multifaceted survivor that captured the world’s attention, reveals another layer to the onion that is his intriguing personality.”_ He got that fucking line framed. Rick called him Onion Boy for six months.

Pulled out of his thoughts by a twinge in his back, he sighed and scooted down in the large bed so he could lay flat. The movement temporarily jarred Johanssen and made her grumble. “Sorry, sorry, Princess,” he said, groaning as he stretched out.

She sniffed audibly, and said, “Apologies not accepted, peasant,” in a haughty tone.

Mark chuckled despite himself and sank down nicely into the warmth of their bed, their bodies.

“Do you want a massage later?” Chris asked, voice quiet, eyes still on his tablet.

He murmured a ‘maybe’ and a ‘thanks’ in reply, and closed his eyes, thinking again.

So he was teaching, now. And the questions, mostly scientific though they were, were pulling up old Mars-flavored memories.

Thankfully, not the kind that would send him running for his tent. But enough that he was looking over the long drafts that he’d kept out of the manuscript for his first book, the pieces that would have broken his “do not speak about Ars-May” rule. Long chapters about all the stuff people wanted to hear about Ares 3, and everything that went wrong.

Mark found himself writing those chapters even when he said he wasn’t going to. Writing about the adventure of it, the rush that came with problem solving, the adrenaline-fueled, one-track minded times. And he wrote about the other times, too, the stuff that didn’t really make it onto the video logs. He wrote about the loneliness, the desperation, the fear…those times, he thought maybe the crack NASA-appointed headshrinker wasn’t completely off base about it being therapeutic.

He opened his eyes and looked at the line of Beth’s nose, lit up blue by the television screen. He thought about Beck’s sure and steady hands that would wear away at the knots in his lower back later. He thought about their eager, fledgling plans of trying for a baby, and how they’d assured him that their (admittedly awesome) kid would have an (awesome) Uncle Mark.

He thought about his class, about his Mom, about Molly at home, about the garden where he was growing snapdragons and cucumbers and peas, and yes, he’d finally planted a fucking potato plant last week because yeah maybe he’d never eat another baked potato in his life, but he fucking missed homemade french fries.

He had parts of his life that didn’t involve Mars. But he wouldn’t have any sort of life at all if everything that had happened there hadn’t happened.

Maybe that was worth looking back on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please imagine Mark using one of [these](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/610Ivtq4pKL.jpg), or [these](https://res-1.cloudinary.com/ezvid-inc/image/upload/c_fill,f_auto,h_210,q_55,w_285/pkwmdb0ywkszdwylrvem), in his garden. It gives me such joy.


End file.
